Anne Butcher. Her thoughts that count.

Writing About Writing: Know Thyself

I done messed up.

I’ve been trying my very best to get each and every blog post of this daily challenge up before midnight. Due to circumstances, today that did not happen. It is currently 12:55 a.m. as I am writing this. This blog post is overdue.

One of the hardest parts of being a writer is that it’s ridiculously easy to say you couldn’t make time to write “due to circumstances.” I have been guilty of this on a multitude of occasions and will probably be guilty of it on a multitude more to come.

But the most important thing to keep in mind here is that I am still writing. I WILL get this blog post up before I fall asleep tonight. Because if there’s one thing I know about myself it’s that if I don’t get anything up at all today I probably won’t stick it out and write the other 16 blog posts of writing advice I owe you.

As writers, we need to be aware of our own processes. We need to know our weaknesses and limitations. We need to accept that tips that might work for others don’t necessarily work for us. For example, are you the kind of person who can write a little everyday or do you need to dedicate 4+ hours to your work to get anything done? Are you better off with time goals (I will write for an hour a day) or content goals (I will write 5 pages a day)?

I don’t know about you as a writer. There are certain things you will only learn about yourself by forcing yourself to write. But I DO know that I need to give you at least some blog post today in a desperate attempt to keep this whole project on track. I am not the type of person that can just skip a day and then come back and pick up where I left off. The reason I know this is because I’ve made this mistake before and I am trying to learn from my failures and prevent similar ones.

If there is one thing I beg of you, please do not let “circumstances” shut you down altogether. Ultimately, it’s better to post something an hour late than let it ruin your morale and keep you from writing at all. The more you write, the more you’ll learn about yourself and what you need in order to keep yourself producing work.